The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic — which has forced governments around the world to lock down their economies — has the United Way Worldwide focused on a singular mission: Damage control for the millions thrown out of work.
The global nonprofit’s regional offices are all working in various ways to support the ranks of the newly unemployed as jobless claims surge to historic highs of over 22 million, as well as obtaining needed supplies for first responders.
As a result, the global nonprofit has thrown the weight of its considerable budget behind managing the fallout from the pandemic, which has sickened over 2 million people worldwide and killed more than 166,000.
“United Way is the largest nonprofit in the country, and in the world,” president and CEO Brian Gallagher said, pointing out that the organization raised over $3 billion in the U.S. last year. “Everything we're doing right now has shifted to COVID.”
The organization is looking to do more than “just fill gaps” as the needs across the country multiply, Gallagher added.
In order to “not just fill gaps,” United Way is coordinating with multiple players including local city officials, county officials and state government to assure that people who have needs, “those needs get addressed,” according to Gallagher.
The CEO said that call volume at United Way’s 2-1-1 centers — a free and confidential service to help those in need — is seeing “more than double or three times what we would normally take in a day.” Across the U.S., these centers are currently taking approximately 75 thousand calls a day.
And in COVID-19 hot spots like New Orleans, Seattle and the New York suburbs, 211 centers are serving as much as 10 to 12 times their usual volume of calls. The nature of those calls has evolved with the growing crisis. In the U.S., the case count is closing in on 800,000, while deaths are over 40,000.
“A month ago, that was about COVID and health-related. Should I get tested? I don't have a medical home. I don't have insurance,” Gallagher told Yahoo Finance.
“Now it's all about economic distress,” with people worried about rent, food and money, he added.
“And so what we do is we figure out what food pantries, what shelters have beds or food. Somebody calls or texts 2-1-1, and we connect them,” Gallagher added.
‘An economic issue’
The 125-year-old nonprofit organization is working tirelessly to address the COVID-19 crisis and receiving donations in the millions. Yet Gallagher pointed out that the nonprofit sector was one of the largest employers in the U.S. — and he feared that the ability to sustain the volume of their help will be challenged by the current environment.
“It's an economic issue. If we don't keep people in the nonprofit sector, in food pantries, in homeless shelters and after school programming and so forth, senior centers, those folks go out of work, and then they can't help other people,” he added.
For this reason, the United Way is uniting with other nonprofits like YMCA USA and Goodwill to call on Congress to include a “Nonprofit Sector Track within the next COVID-19 economic stimulus package.”
“I think what's going to be an open question is what happens three months from now, not just for United Way, but for all nonprofits,” Gallagher said.
“The history is that when a disaster hits, the outpouring from Americans is unbelievable. But you do hit a wall at some point, and then the question is going to be, with that economic dislocation, employees not working and so forth, what can we sustain?” he asked.
“That's quite honestly, that's my biggest fear,” the CEO added.
Brooke DiPalma is a producer for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @BrookeDiPalma.
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